Real Platinum God and BOI:Rebirth Experiences.

[Erebus]

First time poster here, and just got the final two achievements about an hour ago. Which is good, because this game had somewhat consumed my life as I hunted for each and every last item. On some levels I think I hate this game now, though I know I will get the expansion day one and go through it all again, so the frustration stems solely from how much work goes into completing this. I do have a pretty good story for the final item though, one many of you may be familiar with, or at least the situation. Some overall thoughts though.

A. I HATE The Lost. Huge Surprise here, I know, though I don't dislike the idea behind it. Just, this game is so twitchy, and having so many ways to kill yourself, let alone enemies doing it... It isn't like most other games with only one hit and your dead challenges, because at least there, your death is the result of failing against an enemy. In the end, you could say I cheaped it out, though it wasn't from a lack of trying. My best original run, getting to Isaac, involved having a whole bunch of bouncy scythes, and some great luck from Guppy's Collar, though I seemed to forget what I was doing and died promptly entering the room. I did at least get through the Boss Rush room with this set up, and no mantle either.

As a result, my winning strategy involved two simple steps. Becoming Guppy, which that alone might have been enough, but to cement it, getting the Stop Watch. May be cheap, but after so many accidental deaths, especially near the end with deaths that happen just entering a room and meeting a face full of laser, I don't particularly care. Got the job done.

Favorite New Item, Monstro's Lung. I like the charge items in general anyways, but that explosion of tears, once I realized what it was, was awesome. Especially as it provided a good alternative to Brimstone, whilst also keeping tear effects, which is excellent.

Also, sad I hadn't switched sooner, but using the controller is so much better. Especially when I had completed the game basically in it's entirety minus a few things here or there with WASD and arrow keys. Though, once it became clear I would not be able to maintain the movement I needed with The Lost through this method, a controller became necessary, and was basically necessary before that for a few of the final challenges.

And the Final Items. I don't know what most people's final items were, I have read Godhead tends to be hard to find, Black Lotus... well, I got lucky in that respect, as Godhead came with the first reroll of an Angel Room, and Black Lotus was ages ago before I even completed it with Lazarus *who I think I dislike even MORE than The Lost, on the sheer fact that the Lost at least had good elements.* No, my final item was Missing No.

Missing No... First, I had generally really bad luck with finding secret room items in general. And despite my best efforts to maximize as many rolls as possible I just wasn't having any luck. Even the runs when I finally managed to get infinite rerolls, I never managed to even find any item, or spawn an item within the secret room. My final attempts was basially haphhazardly restarting and trying to bomb anywhere a secret room would be, and reroll or hope it was missing no in the first place. Still it couldn't have been any more perfect. So much so and so unexpected it was too bad I couldn't have screen shot it. It was a standard Cellar, but one with the added bonus of Curse of the Blind. I normally would have just reset right then and there, because, as you would know, you can't even see what your item is. The Treasure room was just there to the left, so I decided to just go check to see if maybe I could get lucky with a bunch of bombs in hopes of finding a secret room. A Best Friend super bomb was on the pedestal, and was quickly wasted, though it at least saved my built in bomb for blowing up the secret room in the next room. And it so happened that yes, there was an item in there, a big giant question mark that I had no way of knowing what it would be. So, I did the only thing I could, and smashed the d6, and just ran into the new question mark, hoping and praying it would be Missing No.

And I was greeted with the glorious pop ups of Platinum God and Real Platinum God.

In any event, I know personally I'll let the game sit awhile, cool off of it, probably until the expansion comes out, so I will be fresh and ready to pour some more time into it. At the least, I think the work done to this game, and the improvements from the original, is such a great triumph. All the best of luck to the new expansion on the way, and all the awesomness that it will bring as a result.